Amgen’s Good News Bad News for Regeneron?

By Ben Levisohn

Shares of Amgen have gained 2% to $122.95 today after the biotech giant said that a trial showed it’s cholesterol drug works better than a placebo. Reutershas the details:

Amgen Inc’s drug from a high profile new class of experimental medicines lowered “bad” LDL cholesterol by 55 percent to 66 percent compared with a placebo in a trio of late-stage clinical trials, according to data presented on Saturday.

Amgen had previously said the drug, evolocumab, met the main goals of five late-stage trials involving some 4,000 patients by significantly outperforming placebo or another cholesterol medicine in a variety of patient populations.

Morgan Stanley’s Matthew Harrison and David Friedman note that the minimal number of “neurocognitive events” was good news for Amgen:

Lack of neurocognitives could offer some relief, but overall data as expected. We would expect a modest uptick in A[Amgen] given the very clean data. That said, we believe the key debate continues to be around the long-term market size (which depends on CV outcomes) for which we do not have an answer. We found the data in HeFH and statin intolerant patients to be the most compelling given the high baseline LDL-C (~195mg/dL). We believe this population (~500k-1M) will see the most use prior to outcomes data given the higher unmet need.

Credit Suisse analyst Jason Kantor and team call the results good news for Regeneron Pharmaceuticals version of the drug, but not necessarily its stock:

Data from [Amgen's] evolocumab program substantially derisks the anti-PCSK9 drug class, demonstrating consistent efficacy and safety across multiple Phase III trials. Provided [Regeneron] shows similar results (highly likely), competition is likely to focus on dosing strategy, while the ultimate market opportunity may be largely determined by results from the ongoing outcomes studies.

We view the data at ACC as a best case scenario for [Amgen] – consistent efficacy and clean safety. For [Regeneron] and Sanofi, the data supports our blockbuster view of the market, though some [Regeneron] bulls may be disappointed not to see some significant flaw in the [Amgen] data.

Looks like quite a bit of disappointment. Shares of Regeneron has dropped 0.9% to $297.31 today, while the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB) has gained 1.7% to $233.10.

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Earnings reports, corporate strategies and analyst insights are all part of what moves stocks, and they’re all covered by the Stocks to Watch blog. We also look at macro issues, investor sentiments and hidden trends that are affecting the market. Stocks to Watch gives you the full picture of the U.S. stock markets, all day long.

The blog is written by Ben Levisohn, a former stock trader who has covered financial markets for the Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg and BusinessWeek.